


Give Sigh For Sigh

by RedFlagsAndDiamonds



Category: Dodge City (1939), Gone With the Wind - All Media Types, Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Genre: Alternate Reality, Clothing Porn, Crossover, Errolivia, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Love at First Sight, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Abortion, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Period-Typical Racism, Romance, Scandal, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 03:56:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15040160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/pseuds/RedFlagsAndDiamonds
Summary: Recently widowed, Melanie Wilkes becomes infatuated with a handsome Irish cattle driver, despite social expectations and her own conscience.An Errolivia crossover, GWTW/Dodge City





	Give Sigh For Sigh

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in an alternate reality from the GWTW film canon, in which Melanie survives but Ashley does not, Scarlett never takes a fall down the staircase, and Bonnie's incident is much less severe.

  


_So soon may I follow,_ _  
_ _When friendships decay,_ _  
_ _And from Love's shining circle_ _  
_ _The gems drop away._ _  
_ _When true hearts lie withered,_ _  
_ _And fond ones are flown,_ _  
_ _Oh! who would inhabit_   
This bleak world alone?

 

  * Thomas Moore, “The Last Rose of Summer”



 

* * *

 

  
  


“Cattle!” Captain Butler was boasting to the company, with all of his usual ostentatious charm - one arm braced on the mantelpiece while he raised a glass of bourbon in emphasis.

“- it’s not cotton that’ll be king much longer - beef and leather’s what this country needs, now the cities in the west have risen!”

Melanie Wilkes glanced up with polite interest as she poured her Scarlett a second cup of English tea, but Mrs. Butler’s cherry red lips had twisted into a prim sneer.

“Sometimes I think you’re only in love with your own voice. Every one of those fools’ll be dead of snake bitin’ and sun-fever in a week.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my dear - progress is marchin’ across this country faster than Sherman’s troops, and I don’t intend to be trampled under it’s feet. That’s why we’re cornering the market, starting next week.”

Scarlett shot to her feet.

“Rhett, you didn’t!”

“That I have, my honey-sweet - congratulate yourself; you’re now the proud share-owner of two thousand, five hundred heads worth of prime longhorn steers.”

“ _That’s_ why you insisted so on selling my lumber mill! You - you lyin’ deceitful lump of - I can’t think of a proper thing nasty enough to call you-!”

With a final shriek of indignation, she swept from the parlor in a wave of periwinkle taffeta, without so much as a backward glance at the guests.

Sighing, Melanie raised imploring eyes to the others, wordlessly offering the teapot as a peace offering.

“Perhaps, Captain Butler, you could be so kind as to explain the cattle trade - it does sound rather adventuresome?” she attempted, leaving the tea cart to take Scarlett’s velvet-tufted seat beside the mantel. Poor dear - no doubt she’d return once the first shock had worn off. Certainly her husband ought to have consulted her, but of course he must have had his reasons. Perhaps he’d even meant it as a gift - how dreadful then, the presentation had certainly been spoiled by her displeasure!

Despite Melanie’s misgivings, the Captain hardly seemed forlorn - his eyes twinkled as brightly as she’d ever seen.

“Well then, ladies - imagine five hundred baby calves, raised on the finest oats and barley money can buy in Texas. Then when they’re grown big and heavy, and their horns wide enough that a man can’t span them with both his arms stretched out, they’re marched in a grand charge across miles of windswept desert to the great plains of Kansas and sold at auction for a pile of gold, to feed and clothe brave men who’ll build this country for our children’s children. Well now, that’s how our Bonnie likes to hear it.” he chuckled.

“Why Captain!” Melanie gasped. “You can’t mean you’d leave Scarlett now! Not with the baby coming-!”

He threw his head back and laughed uproariously.

“Miss Melly, there’s a good deal I can manage, but travellin’ into indian territory on a wagon isn’t even my idea of a holiday - I enlisted the best man in the business, Holloway, Hartford, somethin’ like that; he’ll handle the transactions for a flat fee, and the takings come rolling into the pocketbook of yours truly. That, Miss Melly, is the trade of the future.”

 

*

  


The hall clock chimed two in the early morning, but Melanie couldn’t be sure if it were the noise that woke her, or the half-remembered nightmare that had left her drenched in cold sweat.

She knew from experience that there was no point in trying for more sleep, so with a heavy sigh she climbed out of bed, undid the top buttons of her nightgown, and let it drop around her feet in a pile of sodden fabric.

It would have been easy to ring for Tilly and have the water heated, but she hated to be any trouble, particularly to a little darkey housemaid who worked so hard in the daylight hours; cold water from the washstand would do.

As she scrubbed the much-abused little sponge over her damp skin, Melanie couldn’t help but ponder if her lack of rest over the past several months had everything to do with the stretching emptiness of her little cherrywood bedstead, now that she slept there alone. She had done her best, certainly - sewn new sheets after Dr. Meade had ordered the old ones burned, to prevent contagion, and when those proved too scratchy, she had made them up all over again, frantic to keep her mind quiet and her hands busy - but there was no replacing the comfort of a body beside her own in the night, the steady pattern of slumbering breath, and the feeling of security.

Once upon a time, when she couldn’t make her eyes close, Ashley would read Dickens or Keats until she’d at least been lulled to a doze, before turning down the lamps with a pet to her hand - but that was a futile memory now, and if there was one thing Melanie disliked, and only one, it was her own habit of feeling sorry for herself. Others had it far worse, had lost entire families to that dreadful, pointless war - think of poor dear Scarlett, both parents buried, and widowed twice over! - and here she stood, carrying on because her husband had survived rifles at Gettysburg and a Yankee prison, and come home at last to die peacefully in his bed. Besides, she still had little Beauregard, and Aunt Pitty, and the Butlers to look after her - wallowing in grief was a selfish indulgence to be sure.

Her bustles rustled along the parquet in the hall like a trail of black bombazine, and were it not for the lamp she might have vanished into the shadows altogether. There was little to do at this hour, but as her grandmother had been fond of saying, “the hand of the diligent maketh rich.” Some of Beau’s trousers could do with mending, he was forever climbing the trees, and only yesterday he’d torn the sleeve of his norfolk jacket clean out of the armhole… perhaps it was time he had some new things, growing as he was, like a weed in a cotton field. Some of Ashley’s old clothes would do, there was no sense in allowing the fabric to be wasted - that was a blessing the war had brought after all, a lesson to every Georgia belle as to the value of frugality.

Melanie kept her head entirely all the way to the study, as if she were walking through a dream, but when she had pulled back the curved lid of the saratoga trunk and begun sorting through the shirts and waistcoats and checked trousers like a highway thief, something broke her resolve; a strangely familiar scent, caustic and raw. It was only once she had lifted away the final layer of moth sachets that she caught sight of the grey wool, patched with bloodstained calico and trimmed all around the cuffs with the yellow cord that she had twisted so lovingly all through the winter of ‘63, to have it ready in time for Ashley’s Christmas leave. He’d promised to keep it safe until the war was over, and hadn’t he come trudging, weary but whole, up the dirt road to Tara that sweet, mild morning with grey wool on his back?...

When Tilly found her hours later, slumped beside the trunk with tracks of salt dried on her sallow cheeks, she thought it best not to disturb her, whatever propriety might say. After going without for so long, Miss Melly deserved every moment of sleep she could manage.

 

*

  


“Miz Bonnie, you get back on up here! You knows you ain’t s’pposed t’be downstairs when your pa got comp’ny!”

Mammy’s familiar scolding was the first thing to reach Melanie’s ear when she slipped through the front door, drawing back her widow’s veil in time to see the youngest Butler tearing across the grand entry hall in a stripe of dark curls and prussian blue silk.

It was a near thing, but she managed to bring Bonnie to a halt with one quick snatch of her delicate hands.

“You mustn’t be running like that, dear! Would you want to break your leg all over again?”

Her little niece had the decency to look somewhat penitent, but she supposed it was a difficult thing for a child who was so accustomed to having her own way, bless her heart.

Huffing for breath, Mammy finally reached them at the foot of the staircase and gave the girl’s behind a gentle swat.

“Runnin’ up’n down them stairs is gonna be the death of me! I’s speakin’ to your ma about you, child!”

The old woman had already begun leading her away before Melanie had the chance to speak.

“The captain’s entertaining?”

“Yes, Miz Melly - that cattle man what’s come east; they been in that study for near half an hour now -”

Melanie’s face fell, as her hopes of making a quick departure were stifled. At any other time, even if she were merely calling to ask for the leftover account books to the mill, she would have had no qualms as to staying for conversation or maybe even dinner as a polite woman should, but the early morning misadventure had left her face wan and pinched, as well as her eyes reddened. While Melanie wouldn’t have given her own vanity a thought, she didn’t like making others worry for her sake.

“Well then, if you would be so good as to let him know that I -”

“The next cattle train leaves Fort Worth in four weeks, Captain - we can have those steers up the Northern Trail by the first of May.” a man’s unfamiliar voice rang across the hall as the study door opened, and Melanie found herself trapped like a rabbit cornered by hounds.

“Four weeks, is it? Well,no need to rush off just yet, Mr. Hatton; as you can probably see, we’re not exactly hurting for cash - well, there’s my bonny bluebell!”

Bonnie squealed delightedly as her father scooped her up out of Mammy’s clutches and started cooing some silliness about their visitor from indian territory, where the redskins hung little girls’ scalps on their belts, but Melanie took only a passing notice, caught as she was under a stranger’s stare.

He was taller than Captain Butler - that alone was an accomplishment - and coupled with slender strength like a young sapling tree, he would have made a long-gone, sixteen year old Atlanta belle tremble in admiration. But now the belle was a youthful widow, her doll-like beauty sacrificed to grief, and she would have expected a well-deserved look of pity or concern on his face at her haggard appearance.

But the concern quickly became Melanie’s own, when instead she was greeted with slack-jawed astonishment.

 

*

 

Wade Hatton had been called many unflattering things throughout the whole of his long, colorful career, but superstitious had never been one of them. Yet in that moment, he couldn’t help but wonder if God had taken it into His head to play a cruel and vicious game; he’d only ever seen eyes that lovely and fragile in one other woman, and…

There were some meaningless, polite words between Butler and the apparition, although Wade noted - with some gutless, terrified feeling he wouldn’t dare to call hope - that those familiar eyes kept darting back to meet his own astonished stare.

“I was only - I’ll just go up and see Scarlett, if she isn’t feeling too poorly.”

Saints Mary and Joseph, even her voice was like something out of the past.

The captain huffed.

“As you like, Mrs. Wilkes - better your neck than mine.”

Blushing furiously, she mounted the velvet stairs with a pattering of delicate feet, and Wade had no idea of the severity of his own captured attention until Butler cleared his throat.

“You oughta be more careful - a man could catch flies, gaping like that.” he smirked, meandering back through the study door and snapping open a box of cigars that likely could have purchased Wade’s last cattle run three times over.

“Besides, you’re wasting your time. Melly Wilkes didn’t have so much as a whisp of breath for any other man when her husband was alive, and now he’s dead -”

“She seems young for weeds, if you’ll pardon my saying.” he muttered, idly wondering how cruel life could be, if that particular lady had been devoted to a man so many years her senior.

The captain scoffed, and when he spoke it was with perhaps more vehemance than necessary.

“Ashley Wilkes didn’t have a strong bone in his body - if consumption hadn’t taken him, it would have been pneumonia from a stiff breeze. And that was just his mortal corpus; the Lord Himself could take a few lessons in goodness from that woman, and who does she have the dubious fortune to marry? A whey-faced beanpole who couldn’t maintain mental fidelity but didn’t have the courage to commit physical adultery. A regular comic production in two acts.”

By then the cigar was billowing from between his severely square teeth like a New York smokestack, and Wade drily considered the few possibilities as to how the recently deceased could have poisoned the Captain’s opinion so severely. But it seemed that the trirade wasn’t through just yet.

“- Completed only by an intermezzo in which the beloved wife near to kills herself out of desperation to continue her husband’s inbred pedigree - a tragic irony of life.”

Yes, Wade agreed silently, as a sour taste filled his mouth and his blood seemed to pool out of his veins onto the floor. God certainly had a twisted sense of humor.

 

*

  


Scarlett was moody and a little sharp-tongued, but that could only be expected with the baby making her sick. She’d finally begun to show somewhat, and as such was now confined to the Peachtree Street mansion and her brocade housecoats - at least, according to propriety. Melanie had no doubt that Mrs. Butler would ultimately flout convention in her own bold style, with a fearlessness that Melanie had always mourned she did not possess.

It would have been useful at that very moment, when a thousand questions were burning on her tongue.

As it was, she only managed; “Who’s the gentleman downstairs?”

Scarlett sniffed, and reshuffled the card deck.

“Hardly anythin’ so grand - white trash from Texas is all. Red or black?”

Thus the matter was closed, and Melanie was forced to wonder, both at the character of the un-introduced Mr. Hatton, and - more pressingly - her own sudden, intense curiosity.

She made her excuses when Mammy came bustling in to fluff the pillows and announce that “Miz Scarlett needed her nap.” Account books and the original purpose of her visit entirely forgotten, she hurried back down the staircase and out the front door, both dreading and praying for another passing glimpse that never came to fruition.

There’d been no horse or carriage since the mill foreman had demanded three months back pay on the heels of Ashley’s funeral - Melanie had been unspeakably ashamed that the finances had apparently grown so dire without her knowledge - and as a result she had become willingly accustomed to making her way about Atlanta on foot. Aunt Pitty had wailed and protested that it wasn’t decent, but her niece assured her that the practice had it’s advantages; she could greet acquaintances on the street, and enjoy a bit of sunlight on her cheek, even if it were through the crepe of her mourning veil.

A breeze wafted past, fluttering the fabric, and thanks to the distraction she didn’t notice the loose pavingstones until it was too late. One booted foot caught on an uneven ledge, quickly sending her into a sprawl across the muddy side-walk as a flash of pain lit up her shinbone. Several passersby paused to gawk, but did nothing, and for the briefest moment Melanie couldn’t help a longing for what had once been - gallantry and grace had vanished with the ashes of the Confederacy.

She pulled herself up with the aid of a nearby garden gate, but her injured foot seemed entirely unwilling to support her weight for even a moment, and she realized with a twinge of apprehension that the house was nearly three blocks away - could she hobble so far -?

“I’ve always said petticoats can kill faster than any gun.” a familiar voice called, just as a chestnut mare clopped alongside. “Mrs. Wilkes, isn’t it?”

Mortified, Melanie did her best to ignore the pain and held herself up with a shaking grip on the little fence.

“M- Mr. Hatton. I-”

“Can I offer some assistance?”

“Oh no, I -”

Her ankle protested viciously when she attempted to bear down on it, and she quickly decided this was no time for ladylike modesty.

“- well, that is, I’d appreciate it...”

He swung down from the saddle in one fluid movement that brought her breath up short, and within a moment she found herself scooped up in his arms like a bale of petticoats, bombazine, and furious blushes.

The latter only increased when she noticed the solid feeling of his chest pressing against her shoulder, and wordlessly scolded herself.

“Please, Mr. Hatton, I -” she protested weakly. “There’s no need for you to -”

“Don’t be silly; however far it is you’re going, you can’t walk it. Now just point me to the house so I can see you’re taken care of.”

Melanie opened her mouth to argue, before realizing that despite what the staring passersby might think, he was right. Eyes downcast, she curled one delicate arm around his neck - for balance, she assured herself - and nodded.

“Down Peachtree Street and turn the next corner; the brick house with the curling porch.”

It was a long walk, and every few moments she expected him to pause in exhaustion or beg to set her down, but it never occurred - as if she were less trouble than a cube of sugar for his horse, following at a sedate pace behind them.

Tilly came scuttling out into the front walk to meet them, alarmed.

“Wha’s happened, Miz Melly?! You put her down, you trash! - Miz Melly’s a lady, don’t you go botherin’ -!”

“Tilly, please - I’m much obliged to Mr. Hatton...” Melanie admonished the maid gently, her tone perfectly level-headed as though she weren’t being carried like a new bride into her own parlor by a strange man.

“Tell Uncle Peter to fetch some lumps from the ice house - and then bring down the footbath, and my kit.”

“Yes’m!”

She hurried out as Melanie was settled into one of the tufted velvet chairs, gesturing towards a nearby hassock.

“If you’d be so kind…”

He understood fortunately, and pulled it over beside the chair, but when his hands actually dove beneath her skirts to reach for the injured extremity, she jumped and nearly stuck herself with a spear-like hatpin as she removed her veiled bonnet.

“I’m sorry - I didn’t -”

“It - it’s quite alright; you startled me, is all.”

She reached down to begin unfastening her walking boot, before glancing up with a meaningful look; Hatton cleared his throat uncomfortably and looked away as he rose to his feet.

“... I don’t mind telling you, it’s pleasant to see a woman with some idea of what’s to be done. Most of the ladies on a wagon trail sit about and cry for help.”

Melanie sighed as she lifted her ankle onto the cushions - safely hidden by her petticoats.

“The war was a harsh teacher - many of us had to learn there was more to life than pouring tea and putting pins in our hair.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

For a moment she thought he might have been smiling at her - though it must have been a trick of the light - and before she could stop herself the words had been uttered.

“Won’t you… stay for dinner?”

His eyes widened, and while she might have retracted the invitation once out of modesty, her mind was quickly made up. She could already hear Aunt Pitty swooning with a wail for smelling salts, but after all, he was a gentleman who had done her a kindness (however unnecessary.) There couldn’t be any harm in it.

“No worries as to what the neighbors might think, Mrs. Wilkes?”

“If they think it improper, I’ll tell them the truth -” she began, but the speech was interrupted by the parlor door creaking, while a small face peered around the jamb.

Melanie smiled brightly and reached out a hand.

“Come say hello to our guest, darling.”

  


*

 

It was like a glimpse of the future, if the past could have been changed.

The boy grinned with delight as he fired another victory, and collected his bounty to add to the gleaming pile of marbles resting on the elaborately patterned carpet - if Wade had deliberately mis-aimed for several rounds, well… he doubted any jury would convict him.

Mrs. Wilkes sat by the fire grating in an armchair - her ankle much recovered since the afternoon - and watched the game with a demure smile, her needles clicking with each twist of her little fingers.

It was the one imperfection in the fantasy, he realized with a pang.

Abbie didn’t knit.

For a moment Wade loathed himself - she was a sweet, admirable lady in her own right, and he had no business forcing his attentions on her based purely upon an unfortunate resemblance. And yet, as some traitorous sect of his mind objected, didn’t it ease the pain if he could pretend, just a little? Make believe like a small girl playing at houses, that he hadn’t come home that wretched, late morning, and found his wife sprawled across the floorboards like a broken doll…

A clock in the front hallway chimed nine, apparently summoning the colored housekeeper to fetch the child to bed. Thankfully, he went with only a pout and a kiss to his mother’s cheek. Her eyes softened as she watched him go.

“I must thank you, Mr. Hatton - he hasn’t smiled so much since…” she paused, her lips thinning, and bent over her knitting again.

A weighty quiet settled over the parlor, and Wade quickly decided it would be best to retreat before the situation became irrecoverable.

“I suppose I ought to get back - it was an excellent meal, my compliments.”

Her smile returned, and he silently thanked every saint he could remember.

“I don’t suppose you find the opportunity for many home-cooked dinners on the Chisholm trail, then?”

“Not for a good year.” he replied with a smirk. It was no lie - Rusty’s plump little Nevada beauty hadn’t been skilled at much more than raspberry preserves.

“Why, how inhospitable of the ladies of the west!” she giggled. “Georgia will have to make a home for you.”

She made to rise from her seat, before he caught one of her delicate hands in his own and motioned her back, fighting the craving to brush his lips across her lace-covered knuckles.

“I’d like to see you again, if I may.”

A pink blush colored her cheeks as she smiled shyly, and he was struck anew by the fragility of this woman, with a face as open and lovely as one of his mother’s cabbage roses.

“I’d… be delighted, Mr. Hatton.”

  


*

  


“I think it’s perfectly vulgar - parading that child about!”

“Why India! - Captain Butler has been extraordinarily kind to us, during the war and now it’s over!” Melanie protested as she tied on the newest bonnet; a shirred black taffeta affair that bound rather fetchingly under her left ear. Not that she expected anyone to notice, certainly not, but the old one had been getting rather worn…

“And as for vulgarity, I find it very suitable that any gentleman should dote so on his only child; after all, he hasn’t any family, and some fathers would ignore a daughter altogether!”

“I still don’t see why it’s necessary to bring out half of society to watch a seven year old make an exhibition of herself on a white pony! That hateful Scarlett must not give two straws for her, not since she near killed herself last year jumpin’ that fence-!”

Melanie spun around with a sweep of taffeta.

“India Wilkes, if you mention one word of that hurtful matter this morning, I’ll make our regrets immediately for the rest of the month.”

The spinster’s eyes grew wide, and immediately Melanie felt an aching regret at playing on India’s deepest fears - after so many years of loneliness, Miss Wilkes lived for public appearances in the hopes of landing some wealthy gentleman’s attention.

“Well…” she began again, subdued. “I’ve no doubt that the company will be lacking, anyway. One can’t find a single party free of riff-raff now, not after -”

It was a tried and true topic among the Atlanta dowagers, who made up India’s main social circle, and so Melanie tried not to judge her harshly. It was easy, in fact, to only half listen until something unexpected (but not unhoped for) was mentioned.

“- why, even that trash from Texas is received now; Cathleen Hilton told me he’d be at the Butlers’ this very morning. But surely you wouldn’t care about that.” India muttered, fixing hawkish eyes on her sister in law.

Melanie thought it best not to respond, but after India had swept out the door, she paused in front of the hall mirror, and for the first time since the war, pinched at her cheeks to bring out a rosy glow.

  


*

  


“‘So - the bereaved widow takes an unchaperoned stroll with the cattle man, on a Sunday no less, and you mean to say the gossip isn’t sweeping the south like Sherman’s fire? B’dead, I ought to feel insulted.” Hatton chuckled self-deprecatingly at her side, and Melanie smiled despite herself.

“I’m afraid Atlanta is somewhat harder to shock now then in past times.” she murmured, tightening her fingers ever so slightly on his arm. “Besides, there’s hardly anythin’ improper in a lady engaging in friendship with a gentleman.”

It wasn’t one of her best lies, but it was surely the most bare-faced - since their Peachtree Street escapade the week before, there had been talk aplenty. However, Melanie held her head up with the self-assurance that she had done nothing wrong. Perhaps receiving another man so soon after her husband’s death had given some people the wrong impression, but Wade - Mr. Hatton, she chided herself - he’d been a great comfort to her, now Ashley was gone. Despite his own misgivings, he could converse on a wide variety of subjects, which was something of a relief (Aunt Pitty was a sweet old dear, but sadly lacking when it came to matters of any depth) and was even fond of Dickens and Shakespeare. They’d read aloud together one afternoon, Berowne and Rosaline respectively, and had dissolved so constantly into laughter that they hadn’t noticed the glances exchanged between the other parlor guests.

Besides, Melanie considered with some increasing desperation, she couldn’t very well refuse to receive him now - not when he was so good to little Beau, who wanted to hear all about Indians, buffalo, and General Custer - always referred to as “General Custard,” thanks to the boy’s baby lisp. Ever since the funeral, the poor darling had been tight-lipped and morose; she’d never seen a child return to life so quickly.

Wade had seemed caught between amusement and horror when she related the events of the day she’d given birth; how Scarlett had pulled the baby free with her own bare hands, while Sherman fired shells across the city and the house almost burned down overhead. Although, she’d recalled with some bemusement, Beau hadn’t let out a single cry, even when they were jounced over uneven road in a wagon bed and accosted by desperate foragers. Wade had clasped her hand then, while they both watched her son playing in the garden, and murmured;

“Then he takes his strength from his mother.”

...So it was all purely for the happiness of her little boy, she decided. Let Dolly Merriwether and Caroline Meade say what they liked - people of any sensibility would know better than to listen.

She could have continued to assure herself of the notion, and in time might even have come to believe it, if rain hadn’t suddenly begun to fall from a clear sky.

  


*

  


“‘Sorry.” Wade mumbled, a little abashed, while Melly giggled helplessly beside him under the shop awning.

“My brothers used to say I was part barn-cat - not eager to get my skin wet, I guess.”

It was a weak excuse for his actions; his social graces had taken a battering over the years spent surrounded by soldiers and longhorns, but he knew perfectly well that one didn’t seize a young woman around the waist (a waist he could span with both hands, Mary and Joseph) and pull her off her feet like a doll to find shelter beside an upholsterer’s window.

At least she seemed more amused than offended, judging by the barely muffled laughter behind her lace-gloved palm.

“Not a barn-cat, Mr. Hatton; a little boy terrified to be called inside to bathe.”

His face burned, but he leaned back against the brick wall and said nothing.

The law must always save it’s face in front of the natives - even if he hadn’t been a lawman for almost a year.

“Someone told me once that rain’s the only thing in the world equal to Almighty power;” he muttered, almost to himself.

“One stormcloud can mean the difference between a thriving rose vine, or leaves withering from thirst.”

She smiled shyly, but her eyes were downcast - with what he was ashamed to hope might be envy.

“...That seems the sort of thing a lady would say.”

Her skin felt china-smooth, when he brushed a thumb under her chin.

“Even a cattle man has a past, Mrs. Wilkes.”

Sympathy washed across her face, and she caught his hand before he could pull away.

“Whoever she might be, wherever she went… it was cruel of her to leave you behind.”

Wade found that he couldn’t meet her gaze, and turned back towards the street. The rainfall had grown heavier, forming a thick grey curtain.

“Not cruel - only afraid of the future and determined to rule her own fate. I only wish -”

She looked at him imploringly.

“Wish what?”

There was no escaping it, not now.

“... That it were as easy to forgive as to resent.”

The moment he finished speaking, she turned his face towards hers, and kissed him gently.

It was difficult to say, later, once his head had cooled, who had been responsible for turning compassion into desire. Her hands caressed his cheekbones, her slender frame pressed against him like a vine to the solidity of a tree, and it was entirely too easy to gather her up in his arms and return the gesture.

A thunderclap broke open the sky overhead, bringing down a deluge with even greater intensity, and she started like a kitten. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, trembling a bit.

“I… I think I ought to go…”

“Stay a moment.” he breathed against her hair. “At least ‘til the rain stops.”

She looked up again, her eyes wet and cheeks flushed, and kissed him again.

 

*

  


He wasn’t in the least like Ashley, Melanie considered quietly.

Her husband had been one of the last of a dying lineage, a gentleman whose very existence was rooted in honor and refinement. He’d been kind to the point of saintedness, in a way Melanie was certain she had never been able to match, and her love and devotion had been more than genuine. She hadn’t lied that morning at Twelve Oaks, when she swore to keep him in her heart until death.

But Ashley had never made her burn; not like Wade Hatton.

Melanie had berated herself again and again for the deception, self-reproach even bringing her to the point of tears sometimes, but not even a beating would force her to admit what she had overheard that firey dawn years before, when the ruins of Atlanta had been left behind them and Captain Butler lifted Scarlett from the wagon, both of them assuming that she lay unconscious in the trundle.

 _“I love you,”_ he’d said to her, and Melanie hadn’t needed to look to know they were embracing in a manner she had and would never experience.

_“In spite of you and me and the whole silly world going to pieces around us, I love you. I've loved you more than I've ever loved any woman and I've waited for you longer than I've ever waited for any woman. Here’s a soldier of the South who wants to feel your arms around him, wants to carry the memory of your kisses into battle with him. Never mind about loving me, you’re a woman sending a soldier to his death with a beautiful memory. Kiss me, kiss me once…”_

Scarlett had struck him then, maddened by fear and exhaustion, but Melanie had cried silently, clutching her sleeping baby.

There would be no words of such strength and passion from her own genteel cavalier, and for many nights afterward, she wondered guiltily what it must be like, to love and be loved so intensely.

Wade didn’t have Rhett Butler’s audacity, but there was an open tenderness in the way he’d looked at her that afternoon that left Melanie in no doubt that she was desired, and desperately - a foreign emotion that Ashley had seemingly been incapable of. More worrying was the abrupt realization that the desire was mutual - and that if she gave in to her own yearning, whatever Atlanta and decorum may have thought, those painful wonderings about deep affection might finally be answered…

But it was foolish to think she might be able to cast off society’s expectations so easily, Melanie reminded herself unhappily. After all, she wasn’t anything like Scarlett.

 

The Butlers’ annual ball on the summer solstice had been a high mark of the Atlanta social season ever since they had settled on Peachtree Street, and there were more than enough colorful-clad gentlemen and their fine ladies for a wallflower to gaze at. But as she sat, small and entirely unremarkable on the edge of the tufted window seat, Melanie remained lost in her thoughts despite the ample opportunity for distraction.

Perhaps it was as just well. Her black moire wasn’t nearly the fashion, and the little dotted-swiss cap - last worn to Charles and Scarlett’s wedding- had certainly seen better days after being crushed into a hatbox for so long. Still, it was no matter; her duty that evening was to be pleasant and gracious, not to be seen and admired.

The first couples took to the ballroom floor, forcing Melanie to observe a little wistfully. She’d never been one for dancing- Ashley had been too reserved - but mightn’t it have been lovely, just for once?

She wondered a moment, perhaps a little foolishly, how well Wade Hatton could turn a waltz.

 

“Lookin’ for anyone?”

The harsh tone of voice took Melanie somewhat aback as Scarlett perched beside her on the window seat, the severe box pleats of her stunning red taffeta gown rustling noisily. A gloved hand rested on her bulging stomach, and Melanie recalled - with something like relief - that it must be the baby affecting her temperament.

“Oh no, I - there’s always so much to see, isn’t there? The roses are so lovely this year, darling; you _are_ lucky to have such an enchanting garden.”

Mrs. Butler sighed heavily, sipping back champagne between her heavily rouged lips.

“I really am sorry for the expense this year, what with having to put down so much to buy back the lumber mill.”

Her brow furrowing in confusion, Melanie turned with a moue of surprise.

“But I’d thought - wasn’t the purchase price of the business meant to finance -”

“Oh, that silly old thing.” Scarlett grumbled dismissively, snapping open her fan. “See, once I’d found Jonas Wilkerson had got his hands on that place - that dirty yankee, can you believe it? - I finally got Rhett to see reason about that nonsense with bulls or stoats or whatever they were. So he’s cancelled that contract with what’s-his-name and givin’ me back the factory at last. As if I’d let that trash Wilkerson set foot in that mill I built up from the dirt, him and his nasty little hussy -”

Whatever she said after went unheard, for Melanie could only take note of the roaring in her ears and the queasy knot in her belly.

Scarlett yammered on a few moments more, before coming to a sudden halt, her lovely green eyes slitted and catlike as though her sister in law were a choice plump field mouse.

“But I’d have thought you’d heard all about that already…?”

“Why no, I… I’d no idea…”

“Well, isn’t that just the funniest thing?” she laughed - her glittering, vivacious laugh that all at once seemed both false and cruel.

“After what Maybelle Picard told me she’d seen through the drapers’ window this morning? We all thought certainly you’d bid a farewell-”

Melanie gasped, her face flushing.

“Why that’s - you can’t possibly think-!”

“I don’t know what I think, Melly Wilkes!” Scarlett hissed, all her good spirits instantly evaporated, as though they had never existed at all.

“ - Ashley not in the ground a year, and you’ve gone and lost your head to a _drover!_ ”

There were tears in her eyes, and once Melanie might have softened immediately at the sight of them, thought how sweet it was for Scarlett to be so concerned for her reputation or her happiness, but once the dreadful possibility had entered her mind - that the contract cancellation and Wade’s absence and the vicious gossip might not be unrelated - there was no way for her breaking heart to explain it away.

“I’ve known you for so long, Scarlett darling…” Melanie breathed, staring at her with wide, fragile eyes. “But I don’t believe I’ve ever truly seen you… until now.”

Her petticoats whispered as she turned away and rose from the seat, as if in a trance, and silently left the ballroom.

  


*

  
  


“Miz Wilkes! - What’re you thinkin’ of?! I told you plain as day you mustn’t be seen comin’ here-!”

Melanie nodded miserably, pushing down the hood of her cloak.

“I - “ she began, but speaking around the lump in her throat proved impossible, and as a long-repressed sob clawed free she sagged helplessly into Belle Watling’s soft arms.

 

*

 

“It’s a prickly business, but, well… I can’t say as I wasn’t expectin’ it.”

Melanie gulped down another sugary mouthful of weak tea, finally setting down the saucer with a trembling hand to blot at her reddened eyes.

“Was I so shameless?”

“Oh, not about _him_ \- though I’d dare say y’couldn’t do no better - it’s you, Miz Wilkes. You’re a woman who’s meant to love and be loved. How were you supposed to hide away when chance came knockin’?”

It seemed an easy question to answer - it should have been - but Melanie couldn’t force anything past her tightened throat.

The other woman gazed back at her earnestly, and she recalled afresh why Miss Watling had been her first thought when she had rushed back into her carriage, desperate for comfort and guidance that she no longer knew how to find. No doubt every respectable woman in the city would think she had lost her mind for setting foot in that crystal and mirror bedecked parlor, but it suddenly seemed as though this painted, reviled lady were the one truly kind soul left to turn to.

“... How could I do this… to my husband?” she finally whispered, trembling, and Belle laid a comforting hand on her arm.

“I promised once - I said I’d…”

“Promises are only words, Miz Wilkes - take it from a woman who knows.” Belle moued. “He knew y’were honest at the end, I’m sure - and no doubt he wouldn’t want y’goin’ through life a withered old crone, clutchin’ on memories and a tarnished ring. No man wants that for his sweetheart.”

It was so different from what Scarlett and India might have argued, but in such a twisted, inverted moment, it seemed more reasonable than any southern stricture.

“I’ve been in love, y’know… but he’d never look at me twice, not that way anyhow. It’s a rare thing, when your chance comes so easily and so soon . And Hatton… he makes you happy, don’t he?”

A tear dripped down Melanie’s raw cheek, brushed away by Belle’s stroking thumb, as she nodded helplessly.

“Then please, Miz Wilkes… be happy.”

Great, wracking sobs broke free all over again, though Melanie wasn’t certain if they came from gratitude or relief as she wept frantically against Belle’s whitened neck, tears staining the peppermint striped satin of her bodice.

“There’s paper and ink on the desk. Write to him tonight.” Belle whispered urgently while she petted her hair. “My Big Elijah can have it there in ten minutes, while you get yourself home. Don’t waste this.”

Melanie nodded, her face reddened, but for the first time that evening, her eyes glowed.

 

*

  


Funny. She’d not been so nervous since her wedding day, the only other occasion in her life when she’d sat uneasily in a parlor chair, the folds of a white gown draped around her body, waiting for a gentleman to arrive.

The clock chimed one, the single strike as loud as a gunshot in the quiet, and Melanie stroked at her loose hair uneasily. It fell in the same gleaming waves as before, there was not a single improvement that could be made, but she rose and hurried to the mantelpiece anyway. White cotton tangled against the furniture while she pinched her cheeks, noticing the first beads of perspiration dotting the backs of her knees beneath all the layers of fabric.

Footsteps knocked against the front walk outside, grinding at pebbles. Heart jumping against her ribs, she turned in time to see the door creak open.

She couldn’t meet Wade’s eyes when she rushed over to push the bolt in place behind him, but a shock rippled through her veins when he touched her hand softly.

“We did agree on one o’clock?”

“Yes - I…” she murmured, her voice weak. Suddenly her own tremorous breathing was the loudest sound in the room - he must be aware of it, but gave no sign in the way he looked at her.

Shyness overcame her, but it seemed impossible to take her eyes from his face.

“May I… I believe there’s brandy still on the table…”

A slight gasp, when his fingertips brushed her cheekbone.

“No, thank you.”

Silence hung for a long moment, as Melanie bathed in the warmth of his skin, and wondered desperately what the proper thing might be to say.

“I’m sorry… I don’t seem to -”

“Let me help.” he whispered, leaning down and kissing her gently.

Eyelids fluttering shut, her hands slid up his shoulders and carded through his hair as the embrace deepened and her head spun. After several months of loneliness, the sensation of another person so close, the taste of his lips and the scent of sweat and rainwater on his skin, it was all enough to undo her, and she drew in a trembling breath as Wade lifted her in his arms and began the interminable climb up the staircase, never pausing in kissing her.

It seemed only seconds before Melanie found herself set on her feet once again, the bedroom carpet thick underneath her slippers.

“Now isn’t that more enjoyable without turned ankles?” he murmured against her hair.

Raindrops studded the window panes, reflecting off the orange glass shade of the kerosene lamp, and Melanie watched their shadows slide and glimmer on the wall, every sense in her body overaware of his presence directly behind her, bare skin pleading for touch.

Gradually, she turned, one shaking hand riding the knob of the bedpost. He smiled - heavens, that smile! - and her heart stuttered when he slowly sank to his knees, both hands sliding beneath her robe and petticoats to gently lift one delicate foot.

Fingers traced along the curve of her instep, as if it were an heirloom he held and not flesh, before easing off the little blue satin shoe and helping her to settle her foot on his thigh.

Melanie had married the only man who had ever shown her open affection, after long believing herself too plain and timid when compared to the other belles of Atlanta, and with his death had assumed she would sink once again into oblivion. Wade had shattered that particular conviction, but it was still a shock to see the naked adoration in his eyes while he painstakingly rolled the knit stocking down her leg, until his lips brushed her bare knee, his eyes closing.

Entranced, Melanie reached down and tugged his black cravat loose, heat surging underneath her skin as the slightest inch of his throat came into view.

Eventually she sank onto the bed, allowing him to remove the other articles until both of her legs were bare against his hands, and his attention was turned to another matter.

The little pearl buttons proved difficult at first, and she was obliged to help, until the dressing gown fell into a puddle around her hips and revealed every additional garment she had donned, anxiously, like armor.

“‘Faith…” he whispered, plucking at the busk of her peach satin corset. “I’d almost think you didn’t want me to see you…”

He must have realized the truth of his own statement as it was spoken, because his face colored and the touch on her knee became less bold. Guilt soured the need deep in her belly, and her fingers flew, unfastening each sharp metal clasp until the entire shell of whalebone and satin collapsed free. But perhaps it was too late, she realized with dread; perhaps he thought his attentions were unwanted.

In a frantic need to disabuse him of any such notion, Melanie rose unsteadily to her feet - helped by Wade’s outstretched hands - and quickly unbuttoned the first of three petticoats from around her tiny waist.

He pulled the garment to her ankles, the mass of horsehair padding almost standing upright until she had stepped free and allowed him to shove it aside.

Both his hands gripped the outline of her hipbones through the thin cloth of her chemise - her last remaining shield - while trepidation and relentless want did battle at the sight of his lips trailing kisses up her torso and along each rib, until the buttons at her chest had finally been undone and the chemise fell open to her elbows.

Instinctively, Melanie curled both arms to cover herself, but it proved unnecessary; he stood just as quickly and drew her to his chest, wrapping himself around her slender, shivering body and stroking the long fall of hair away from her throat.

“We needn’t go on, if you like…”

She tensed at the whisper, and before her mind could summon up an answer she frantically began working at the buttons on his shirt, both startled and strangely elated when her mouth found bare skin.

Pitiless sunlight had burnished him gold from the neck to his ribs, so different from the pallid, housebound southern gentlemen Melanie had known all her life that she found herself captivated, even when he laid her back against the lace trimmed pillows and caressed her face, the prelude to another kiss.

Her fingers discovered more smooth golden flesh as she pushed the garment off his shoulders, though her long-engrained modesty wouldn’t allow her to reach down and help while he began fighting with his belt buckle. And anyway, those particular details of life were not made known to a lady of breeding…

But then, a quivering, huddled little voice whimpered in her mind, no lady of breeding would entertain a man in her bedroom after midnight.

Wade groaned suddenly against her cheek, making her excruciatingly aware of the shared heat all down her belly and thighs - a sensation she had never realized she’d missed so desperately, because for all of Ashley’s tenderness, propriety had never allowed them to experience it.

… It wasn’t as momentous as hiding a corpse - possibly - but she quickly decided as she had on that dreadful morning at Tara, that perhaps decorum and breeding could be dispensed with.

She started terribly at the first brush of his fingers between her legs, but even more disquieting was the feeling of her own blood thrumming in her veins, leaving her moist and swollen like overripe fruit, and when he rubbed something firm and raw that she’d never truly noticed in all her shy couplings with her husband, the sensation overwhelmed her until she thought she might cry.

“Oh…”

A choking noise guttered helplessly in her throat as heat burst through her womb, billowing across her skin and melting her inside.. She did cry then, just a few tears that broke free without consciousness when he pushed into her body.

Firm arms curled around her shoulders, cradling her close and tender while he moved inside her, and for the first time Melanie thought she might understand what could drive women like Scarlett to such impropriety, if it meant she could have Wade in her bed and her life, forever and a day…

He lifted his head, one hand cupping her face as he stared down at her, his eyes glassy with need.

“‘God… Abbie…” he moaned raggedly, and Melanie’s heart broke - entirely for him.

She slid her hands up from his back to caress his hair lovingly.

“I’m here, darling… it’s Abbie…” she whispered, feeling his body shudder against her hips, and clutching him close while her eyes fluttered shut.

 

*

  


Wade’s heartbeat thumped under Melanie’s cheekbone as she rested her head on his chest in a fog of lassitude, wondering idly if the quiet contentment shared by lovers wasn’t closest to what was felt by unborn children, and the peace they knew in their mothers’ bodies.

He seemed to have no desire to speak - if she offered the chance, he invariably distracted her with lips, fingers, or… well. Her body had few objections to such conduct, but she couldn’t help the concern that he was carrying an old wound of the heart, which desperately needed lancing.

Of course his strength had eventually given out, and he’d been forced to collapse on his back next to her, breathless. Anxious and affectionate, Melanie had nuzzled at his jaw and petted his hair until he regained some of his senses, and both settled into a silent contemplation.

Wade traced over the line of her spine with a fingertip.

“We’d only been married two months when she died.” he finally began, softly, and Melanie huddled closer.

“‘Hard to imagine anyone being happy in a town like Virginia City, but she managed - in spite of all the death and sand and miserable days and nights, she kept a smile on her face and taught Indian children the Lord’s Prayer. I’d thought that…”

He paused, and drew a thumb across her chin with an indecipherable look, before something seemed to crack in his carefully cultivated mask.

“- They told me it was pennyroyal, she must have been swallowing it by the spoonful-”

Melanie gasped.

“But - but _why -_ ”

“Because she never wanted that baby - I didn’t even know she’d been carrying-”

“Not want a baby? Why, every woman wants a baby -!”

It seemed as though he tried to smile, but the result was a grimace.

“Not every woman has your courage, darling - not when it comes to that.”

Melanie trembled, and fought to reconcile this notion with her own lifelong expectations. In truth, she had been told so vehemently and so often that childbirth would be dangerous and unwise for a woman of her weak constitution, that it had become a desperate, heartrending dream. The idea that any woman, anywhere, might refuse motherhood was simply inconceivable to her.

“It must have been an accident,” she offered, a little desperately. “Perhaps she mistook it for- “

“Three freshly cut plants, cooked down deliberately for the oil? There was no mistake.” There was no raw sorrow left to his tone any longer, merely grieved acceptance.

“But how - how _could_ she?”

“Maybe she needed time - that’s what I tell myself at least - and there would’ve been no convincing her otherwise; she always saw a thing through.”

Her chin quivering a little, Melanie settled against him like a kitten and realized guiltily that she didn’t deserve this man, who for all his obvious distress could forgive the unforgivable.

  


*

  


It wasn’t clear which indiscretion first caused Tilly to glare pointedly that morning; Melanie’s guazy white cotton dress, sprigged all over with pink rosebuds and not in the least suitable for a widow, or the man whose hand she clutched as they came down the stairs together.

Perhaps once she would have blushed for shame at what the neighbors might have thought, as she and Wade silently made their way up the front walk to the fence, where Uncle Peter - ever the loyal soul of discretion - waited with the horse, but in the early hours of dawn, as Wade made his farewells with all the ardency imaginable, she had concluded that her own happiness was of far more consequence than anyone elses’ opinion.

Melanie watched, aching, as he swung himself into the saddle, and in full view of the street she caught his hand, and rose onto her bare toes to offer a last kiss.

His fingers caressed her cheek as they drew apart.

“...I’d like t’see you again, if I may.” he whispered, and a lump rose in her throat, though it waited until she stood alone at the gate to break, and leave her weeping through a tender smile.

“...I’d be delighted, Mr. Hatton.”

  



End file.
